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'Brain Age' Strengthens Your Ability to Play 'Brain Age,' but Little More

by Amar Toor on April 21, 2010 at 12:30 PM

brain ageIf football players need to run and lift weights to condition their bodies, it would make sense for the same principle to apply to cognitive abilities, as well. That's the idea, at least, behind games like 'Brain Age'; play a few brain-teasing games a few times a week, and end up improving mental function in the long run. Many scientists, though, have long wondered about whether or not these cognitive game tactics actually benefit overall brain function, or if they just make people especially adept at one particular skill.

In order to put the games to the test, a group of researchers in the U.K. took a group of people attending the science show 'Bang Goes The Theory,' and began by assessing their four basic areas of brain function: reasoning, verbal short-term memory, spatial working memory and paired-association learning. The group was then divided into three groups. One was given a set of tasks similar to those seen in most brain-training software, another was given more general reasoning or problem-solving tasks, and the control group received only a set of trivia questions, which they could answer using the Internet.

As expected, both experimental groups saw their scores increase on their given task, and even the control group improved its trivia scores. But, when the groups were given more general cognitive tasks that fell outside the boundaries of their specific training, the results weren't as encouraging. Both experimental groups showed improvements ranging from "small" to "very small," according to the authors of the study. Most embarrassing, perhaps, is the fact that the untrained control group actually outperformed the second experimental group when tested on a greater variety of cognitive skills.

As Arstechnica points out, one possible route for further research would be to see if 'Brain Age'-like training programs actually improve performance on more specific jobs, as opposed to general mental functioning. Playing a brain game could be akin to doing a lot of sit-ups. Your abs will probably benefit, but it won't do a whole lot for those flabby arms. Perhaps, then, researchers should interpret these results not necessarily as proof of the limitations of brain games, but as evidence that conditioning something as complex as the human brain takes a much more multi-faceted approach than one game can provide. [From: Arstechnica and ScientificAmerican]

Tags: brain, brain-training, BrainAge, effectiveness, health, neurology, research, science, top, videogames

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